Building Knowledge Cultures: Education and Development in the Age of Knowledge Capitalism

237 Pages·2006·13.194 MB·English

by  Michael A. Peters, A. C. (Tina) Besley

Building
Knowledge Cultures
Critical Education Policy and Politics
Series Editor: Michael A. Peters
This series focuses on current issues in education. Books will explore the
development of the new educational policies and practices that are chang
ing the structure and functions of educational institutions-primary, sec
ondary, and higher-both here and abroad. In the United States, the new
federal involvement in primary and secondary education, most conspicu
ously in passage of the No Child Left Behind legislation, has brought a
new era of testing and accountability while raising questions about. the
role of schools in promoting social inclusion and providing basic training
for the new "information" economy. Books will explore such hot topics as
charter schools, testing, vouchers and tax deductions for education,
teacher education and the teaching profession, and public private compe
tition, to name a few.
Titles in the Series:
Building Knowledge Cultures: Education and Development in the Age of Knowl
edge Capitalism, Michael A. Peters with A. C. (Tina) Besley
Building
Knowledge Cultures
Education and Development in the
Age of Knowledge Capitalism
Michael A. Peters with A. C. (Tina) Besley
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Peters, Michael A.
Building knowledge cultures : education and development in the age of
mowl edge capitalism I Michael A. Peters with A. C. (Tina) Besley.
p. em. - (Critical education policy and politics)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-10: 0-7425-1790-X (cloth: alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-7425-1791-8 (pbk.: alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978-0-7425-1790-5 (cloth: alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978-0-7425-1791-2 (pbk.: alk. paper)
1. Education-Economic aspects. 2. Knowledge management-Economic
:tspects. 3. Knowledge, Sociology of. 4. Postmodernism and education.
[. Besley, Tina, 1950-II. Title. III. Series.
LC65.P47 2006
338.4'737-dc22 2005032025
Printed in the United States of America
§ TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper
for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO 239.48-1992.
Contents
List of Tables vii
Preface and Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: Building Knowledge Cultures 1
1 Cultural Knowledge Economy: Education, the New
Economy, and the Communicative Tum 7
2 The Politics of Postmodemity and the Promise of Education 31
3 Education Policy in the Age of Knowledge Capitalism 49
4 National Education Policy Constructions of the
Knowledge Economy 63
5 Universities, Globalization, and the New Political Economy
of Knowledge 83
6 The Theater of Fast Knowledge: Performative Epistemologies 95
7 The New Pedagogy and Social Learning 113
8 Theorizing Educational Practices: The Politico-Ethical Choices 137
9 Knowledge Networks, Innovation, and Development:
Education after Modernization 151
10 Educational Policy Futures 169
Postscript: Freedom and Knowledge Cultures 185
v
v-i Contents
A.ppendix 1 197
References 199
[ndex 215
About the Authors 225
List of Tables
Table 1.1 Borderless Education 25
Table 1.2 Education in the "Old Economy" and the
"New Economy" 26
Table 2.1 Social Policy and the "Logic" of Globalization 38
Table 2.2 Sociology of Postmodernity 43
Table 3.1 Characteristics of the Knowledge Economy 52
Table 3.2 Analytics of the Knowledge Economy 56
Table 4.1 Coffield's List of Meanings of Learning Society 78
Table 5.1 Knowledge Capitalism as an Aspect of Globalization 87
Table 8.1 Theories of Educational Practice 142
Table 8.2 Background Practices: The Ethico-political
Implications 147
Table 9.1 The Role of Learning in the Knowledge Economy 155
Table 10.1 Main Trends and Pressures Facing Education 172
Table 10.2 Globalization as World Economic Integration 174
Table 10.3 Shifts in the Production and Legitimation of
Knowledge 175
Table 10.4 The Foresight Education and Training
Strategy Group Terms of Reference 179
vii

Preface and
Acknowledgments
F
irst, I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge and thank
my coauthor, Tina Besley, who discussed most of the ideas in this book
with me and wrote substantial chunks of text and most of the chapter en
titled "The Theater of Fast Knowledge: Performative Epistemologies,"
which she presented at the Oxford University conference of the Philoso
phy of Education Society of Great Britain in 2004. Tina has been my con
stant intellectual companion, and I am indebted to her beyond words. She
brings a critical realism to our joint deliberations, together with a wealth
of experience and scholarship.
I would also like to acknowledge the research committee of the Faculty
of Education at the University of Glasgow, which in its wisdom decided
to grant me a small internal research grant to advance this project. While
my research has been supported by the faculty at the University of Glas
gow under the RAE (Research Assessment Exercise) imperative, the deci
sion makers are more interested in counting my publications than in read
ing them. At the same time, I have been told by those in authority with
engineering and science backgrounds that my work is too scholarly, too
abstract and obtuse, and not sufficiently grounded in "useful knowl
edge." ("What on earth is the use of Foucault to education?" I have been
asked on more than one occasion). I guess I have to be prepared to wear
these charges and let readers judge for themselves. And yet I am deeply
suspicious of a knowledge culture that is driven by the ideology of "use
ful knowledge," a shallow and ultimately misleading kind of pragmatism
of "what works" based on the value of research grants rather than the
_value of ideas, and one that is more symptomatic of an industrial model
of research and education than one designed for the creative knowledge
ix